What are lifestyles?

Thinking about lifestyles and living environments is not new. Wirth's paper (1938) discussed the issue. In 'Urbanism as a Way of Life', Wirth describes urban life as one of a wide range of lifestyles. There are numerous definitions of the concept of 'lifestyles'. The common denominator is that a lifestyle is a description of the behaviours selected by individuals on the basis of taste, preferences, motivation, and value systems .

Lifestyles differ not so much in terms of expenditure as in terms of taste. Someone's lifestyle may not tell us about their level of alcohol consumption; it may tell us what they drink.

Categorising lifestyles on a matrix

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Every system for the categorisation of lifestyles includes several dimensions. Usually, a particular system will be simplified to include two or three dimensions for positioning lifestyles. One of the best-known classifications is based on the work of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He positions lifestyles in a matrix with an axis for the sum of cultural and economic capital (from low to high status) and an axis for the difference between cultural and economic capital (from alternative to conservative).
The existence of a lifestyle is justifiable on the basis of the existence of other lifestyles. The choices people make on the basis of their lifestyle differ from the choices made by those with other lifestyles.

Behaviour = Lifestyle x Opportunities

Nas and Van der Sande (1985) suggest that people's actual behaviour is not only determined by their lifestyle, but also by their opportunities. These opportunities are largely determined by outside factors (money, time, space, etc.). Nas and Van der Sande distinguish between five dimensions:

Conclusion: a lifestyle is the expression of someone's taste. The way people actually structure their lives also depends on their opportunities.

Demand = Target group x Lifestyle

In the mid-1980s, demand-driven approaches began to gain ground among government authorities.

Before then, planning was mainly supply-driven. Industrial estates and housing were built without considering demand. This did not present a problem as long as it exceeded supply. However, in the 1980s, the economic tide turned, leaving municipal authorities with large empty industrial estates and unbuilt land on their hands which was costing them a fortune in interest. The response was the emergence of 'city marketing', a more deliberate exploration of the market, with an emphasis on target groups and an active approach to identifying combinations of supply and demand.

Despite its historical roots, thinking in terms of lifestyles has become more important in recent years. However, it would be mistaken to suggest that the lifestyle approach has replaced the targetgroup approach. The one complements the other. Target groups allow us to understand who people are . Lifestyles show us what they want .

It should be pointed out that people are better able to express their lifestyle as they acquire more economic or cultural capital. Declining income or talent raises the probability of convergence between a lifestyle and a target group. People with low incomes do differ in terms of lifestyle but they have few resources for expressing that lifestyle. The higher somebody's income, the larger the differences in lifestyle and more important it becomes to use lifestyles actively in order to appeal to those groups. That is why target groups and lifestyles often coincide in urban regeneration areas. People with low incomes tend to be forced more into relinquishing priorities and preferences in order to survive.